See, it’s comic like this one that set a bad precedent of being “early” that get me in trouble with the definition of “posted on Monday”.

We’ve seen all the characters in the second half of the page before, they were working with David as part of the Consul-Whacking-Squad. We have not seen (I don’t believe) the characters in the first half, though it could be inferred they work in the Bureau . We saw earlier what they are referring to is that previously the Consul mobilized all the registered mages, family mages, and generally anyone else due to the war/situation with Arpon/The IDS/PACT, though that doesn’t mean they are all on the front line (we previously saw Ashvalt last time). Arkady is still on medical leave, in theory, though it seems likely they are intentionally keeping him somewhere they can sort of keep an eye on, as not everyone was thrilled about his last deployment to the battlefield (…including Arkady retroactively as he found himself less suited than he’d hoped, even if he’s a fairly powerful mage by any normal scale)

As is noted here… there’s still plenty of mages around (mostly Family mages) but not ones that the Bureau could call up and tell to go deal with it.

Stas is Rovak’s last name, it just comes up less than some. It should be noted that scarred Warmage isn’t Kardus, though I confess they look more alike than is intentional (Kardus is was taller, broader, and more blond, with slightly longer hair). They were the people David was brought to execute the Rogue families plan, but the Orish among them would have rather split loyalties.

Speech marked with <refers to central’s language> while speech marked with <||refers to Orish||>, I think that’s the same convention I’ve used before, though it’s used less then the other languages.